Bloody

A Weekend in Tassie

I refer to this word "bloody" that has been mentioned. I am an Australian.
"Bloody" is a colloquial Australian term. It may well have been
a swear word prior to World War I. It may well have been a swear word in 1910.However, it is not today.

Peter
Beattie, Premier of Queensland, 24 August 1999.

I
thought he would be an alright bloke for the job so I appointed him... I
didn't consult me bloody cabinet

Former
Prime Minister Bob Hawke commenting on his
appointment of Governor General Bill Hayden, 14 October 1999

So I went into the kitchen, and came
face-to-face with a big bloody roo.

Mr Olsen, Toorbul, Sunday Mail, 23 July, 2000

That bloody crocodile has just bitten me!

Victim tells of croc attack terror, News.com.au, 8 April
2005

So, we have met the future of men's tennis. He is
blue-eyed, blond, wears his cap backward, says "mate"
and "bloody" a lot and looks as if he'd be perfect in the Olympic
halfpipe

Hewett Walks Open Road, LA Times, 18 March 2002

"Gallipoli was a bastard
of a place," he said. "I never understood what we were fighting for.
All I could think of was that I never wanted to go back to the bloody
place."

Albert White, aged 100, Brisbane, Sydney Morning Herald, 17
May 2002

The message is clear - "Shut
Bloody Gate" - Outback WA

Bloody has been termed the great Australian adjective. It is pretty
bloody well used every-bloody-where by just about bloody well everyone. Bloody
oath it is.

They were proud of their mateship
and egalitarianism. Manning Clark writes in his A
History of Australia of a British staff captain who
ticked off an Australian private for failing to salute him [in WW1]. 'The
Australian patted him on the shoulder and said, "Young man, when you go
home, you tell your mother that today you've seen a real bloody
soldier"'.

Phillip Knightley, Australia: A
Biography of a Nation, 2000

It serves two purposes. First, it provides emphasis. For example, one
could say that the Brisbane Broncos played bloody badly. This is
much worse than the plain 'the Brisbane Broncos played badly'. The word
may also be inserted in-between words (or even a word) to provide emphasis:

Who are we playing this weekend?
Brisbane Bloody Grammar.

Recently coke has based an advertising campaign picturing an attractive sole
skulling a big 'buddy' bottle of coke under the description
"sen-buddy-sational". This is, of course, a play on
"sen-bloody-sational" which is fairly common.

Second, it be used as a negative adjective. For example, if a boss asks
where bloody Downie is, then Downie is possibly in strife or at the least in
the bad books. One may also ask, "where is the bloody
thing".

Mr
Seeney: I made my first speech here in this Parliament on 30 July 1998
Mr Schwarten: A bloody beauty!
Mr Seeney: The member for Rockhampton is right: it was a bloody beauty.

Qld Parliament Hansard, 3 March
1999

As would be expected, bloody has a long history in Australia. Baker
notes an apology by William Kelly, Life In Victoria (1859):

I must be excused for the frequent use of this odious word in giving
colonial dialogues, because general conversation amongst the middle and lower
classes at the antipodes is always highly seasoned with it.

And he notes the words of the Bulletin (1893):

The Bulletin calls it the Australian adjective simply because it is
more used and used more exclusively by Australians than by any other allegedly
civilised nation.

In 1939 an Australian magistrate held that bloody was not indecent at
law, even though it might sometimes be offensive. The offender was fined
one pound in this instance. By 1942 however, bloody was held to not be
regarded as swearing. Nowadays, it is very mild, and its use, rather than
causing offence, merely indicates the informality of the situation.

Well, at least that was thought. Recently there
was a bit of a stir because the Premier of Queensland, Mr Peter Beattie, used
the word bloody in parliament. However, the stir from the public wasn't so much
that it had been used, but that the opposition made such a fuss out of the whole
issue.

So what actually happened on that fateful day of
Friday 17 August, 1999?

Dr
WATSON: I withdraw. All one has to do is look at what was tabled in the House.
There is no question that what was tabled in the House was a letter absence of
the appendix!
Mr Beattie: And is it my fault that the bloodyClerk's office lost it?
Dr WATSON: I am just saying what happened.
Mr BORBIDGE: I rise to a point of order. Is it acceptable to the Chair to
have the Premier swearing at the Clerk across the Chamber in response to the
issue?
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!
Mr BORBIDGE: That is outrageous.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!
Mr BORBIDGE: That is absolutely disgraceful.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!
Mr BEATTIE: I rise to a point of order. That is offensive and untrue. I did
nothing of the kind, and the Leader of the Opposition knows it.

Well if that were the end of it, so be it.
But it wasn't. According to the honourable Mr Beanland, MP:

That
is unparalleled and unprecedented in the history of this State. Members here
witnessed what must go down in the records of this place as one of the most
disgraceful and unprincipled acts ever witnessed.

Of course, the Premier struck back:

I refer to this word "bloody" that has been mentioned. I am an Australian.
"Bloody" is a colloquial Australian term. It may well have been
a swear word prior to World War I. It may well have been a swear word in 1910.However, it is not today.

The Courier Mail damned the episode and
recommended that they all "get on with the bloody job and stop wasting our
time and money". Even chief reporter Tony Koch blared that "it
was an absolute bloody outrage". It does seem a little odd when you
consider that bloody has been bloody well used by the bloody mongrel pollies in parliament
for a bloody long time.

I say here today
that parochialism is death, no matter where one lives. I could get up in this
place and say that the only part of Queensland that matters is western
Queensland pretty bloodyright but at the end of the day, it is only part of Queensland.

There are going to be some bloody
mammoth changes -- some mammoth changes which the Budget will disclose. Bloody mammoth changes, that is the only way you can describe
them. I think Frank Crean has done a bloody good job to
stand up to the place. Bloody oath, he has done a marvellous
job in standing up to the bloody place....

TRUST the bloody Poms - they can dish it out but they can't
take it. More than four centuries after the word "bloody" first appeared
in English, British authorities have rejected its use in an advertising campaign
to promote Australia as a tourist destination.

Upholder of British advertising purity washes our mouths
out with soap, SMH, 10 March 2005

Not only are we about to cream the Poms in
just about everything at the Commonwealth Games,
but it appears that our indefatigable Tourism Minister Fran Bailey has
bloody well convinced
the bloody bastards that they bloody well can't ban “bloody” in our bloody
tourism ads.